"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be
frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord
your God is with you wherever you go.” ~Joshua 1:9
Today as I started to open my bible to study the word a strong
force came over me and told me to start looking up passages in the bible about
fear. Then I began to find scriptures on the internet (Catholic pages)
about fear and it became clear to me the strong force was God telling me to
learn and read why I am not to live in fear anymore.
39 years of my life I have lived in some sort of fear in one way
or the other. When I was a child my mother had struggles of her own that
left us kids to basically raise ourselves and fight for our survival.
There were times as a child we would have no electricity or hot water and even
times of no food in the house. Dinner for me, I recall, on several
occasions was a slice of white bread with sugar on it and maybe a glass of
milk.
My eldest sibling had emotional issues that would cause him to
rage at the drop of a hat. His rages were not only mental but physical
and he could strike at you in a second. My mother use to say she was afraid he
was going to kill us all one night in our sleep. This, of course,
developed a fear of being physically hurt.
My mother would go on drinking binges and could be gone for a few
days at a time when I was smaller. There were nights I would pray to God
that she would not die or that she would come back for us and not just pick up
and leave all together. Naturally, this developed into a fear of being
abandoned.
My mother never really worked during my childhood. She would
have a few part time jobs here and there but generally she lived off Social
Security checks from the death of my brothers' father. She also depended
on the men in her life to help pay for things when she fell short. This
caused us to have to move many times during my childhood because we could not
pay our rent. I established a fear of being homeless early on in life.
Then true to the fear it happened the summer before my freshman year. My mother
didn't have a job and didn't have a man at the time she could lean on and she
and I ended up homeless sleeping in the cab of her truck at a rest stop in West
Linn.
Fast forward to my first marriage. My spouse and I were very
young. We had no business being married at such a young age, especially me I
was only 17. My spouse at the time was not a forthcoming man and usually
would lie about where he had been or who he had been with. This developed
a fear of being taken advantage of.
As you can see the patter developed throughout my entire life,
fear has grown in me from as far back as I can recall.
There is a saying
that I have on my computer that sums my fears up pretty good:
"I over analyze situations because I'm scared
of what will happen if I’m not prepared for it."
The fears that I live with continue to be detrimental to my
life I am trying to live. I have talked about letting go of my fears in
the past, giving them to God. But when you live with fear for so long and
you live in fear each day of your life it is hard to just put them on a shelf
and walk away.
I live a much different life now than I did as a child, I am
blessed. But my old fears that were developed as a child are still alive
and with me as I get ready to turn 40. Situations in my marriage to my
hubby now have thrown me into stronger fears than I have ever had and sometimes
I feel like I can be falling down a dark hole.
This is not how I want to live the next 40 years of my life.
Timothy 2 1:7 says:
"For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control."
The life of power and love and self-control is the way I want to
spend the next 40 years of my life. I trained my mind to be a better
person a few years ago, happier. I trained my body to be in the best
shape of its life. I taught myself how to forgive and be able to put the
transgression aside. I WILL teach myself not to live in fear
anymore. This is not the life I want for myself, this is not the life God
wants for me and I know this is not the person my hubby wants to spend the next
40 years with, someone who lives in a darkness of fear.
I hope that I can achieve this and I pray that my hubby will help
me along the way. John 4:18 says
"There is no fear in love, but
perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment and whoever
fears has not been perfected in love"
I know this verse is speaking of
our Lord but I think it goes for our spouses too. We need to have no fear
in love, we need a love that casts out those fears and it is up to us as
married people to ensure that we are casting out the fear for our
spouses. I don't think my hubby has any fears when it comes to me in our
marriage but I know that while working on putting my own fears aside and
learning not to live in them I am going to go out of my way to ensure my hubby
has no fears of his own.
I will learn fear is not where God wants me to live. I will learn that I can only control myself and the rest I have to
give to God.
40 more years of life and I am praying for strength, for the
will to live outside of fear and for the perfect love that casts out fear.
~Mellie
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